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Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
Last month’s offering in this series of posts about documentary and photojournalism collections noted how the Crimean War posed an opportunity—and enormous challenges—to British photographer Roger Fenton. Just six years later, a conflict on American soil, likewise, fueled Mathew Brady’s entrepreneurial ambitions, leading to some of the best known photographic documentation of the Civil War. …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Julie Stoner
I am the first to admit that my knowledge of cars is rather limited. And perhaps like me, you thought electric cars were a relatively new phenomenon. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled across the 1919 photograph below of a car being charged! Much to my astonishment, the first practical electric car was invented in …
Posted in: Photographs, Series: Caught Our Eyes
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
One month ago, a blog post in Picture This featured photos of New York’s Hell Gate Bridge, marking the centennial of its dedication. Today, I turn my attention to prints and drawings of the Hell Gate in our holdings. These drawings and etchings enable us to look at the bridge through an artist’s eyes. American …
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Beverly Brannan, Curator of Photography, Prints & Photographs Division. African American women as well as men assumed civic responsibilities in the decades after the Civil War. William Henry Richards (1856-1941) was active in several organizations that promoted civil rights and civil liberties for African Americans at the end …
Posted in: African American History, Photographs, Portraits, Women's History
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The Library’s documentary and photojournalism collections reflect just how regularly photographers in each generation have taken up the challenge of providing a visual record of noteworthy events and scenes of the everyday. This is the first in a series of blog posts that consider major photojournalism and documentary photo collections in the Prints and Photographs …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Julie Stoner
While browsing through the Prints & Photographs Online Catalog, the title of this photograph made me stop and take a closer look. Upon closer scrutiny, I realized that attached to the rope beneath the kite was a person! With my curiosity piqued, I decided to find out more about this man-flying contraption. An avid kite …
Posted in: Drawings, Photographs, Series: Double Take
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
Most of the United States will “spring forward” this weekend, as we enter Daylight Saving Time at 2:00 a.m. – which will immediately become 3:00 a.m. – Sunday morning. Many of us have never known a time when we didn’t go through the biannual ritual of springing forward an hour in the spring, and falling …
Posted in: News & Events, Posters, World War I
Posted by: Kristi Finefield
New York City is a city of landmark bridges. One hundred years ago this month, Hell Gate Bridge joined the New York skyline as the longest steel arch bridge in the world. The engineering feat attracted the attention of news photographers, as high over the treacherous strait known as Hell Gate in the East River, …
Posted in: Photographs
Posted by: Barbara Orbach Natanson
The following is a guest post by Jonathan Eaker, Reference Librarian, Prints & Photographs Division. When the second rotation of the exhibit, “World War I: American Artists View the Great War,” opened with a new set of objects from Prints & Photographs Division collections, one striking poster jumped out at me. It shows a pair …
Posted in: Photographs, Posters, World War I